About this Research Topic

Background

The value of information is regularly considered by private industry in investment decisions; however, the valuation of knowledge produced in the Earth and environmental sciences (including earth observations), especially as a public good, is an emerging area of research. Previous research includes examples of valuing weather information, geospatial data, and natural disaster occurrences, but it has not been comprehensive. Valuing Earth and environmental science is an interdisciplinary field requiring an understanding of the physical science, economics, decision science, and human dimensions of information creation and value systems that influence use and perceptions of any Earth science and environmental information. Methods continue to emerge, and the community will benefit from additional research setting the foundations for valuing Earth and environmental science; this is critical for society as it informs decisions on research investments, prioritization, and its applications.

Through a Research Topic on valuing Earth and environmental science, we hope to engage the community and provide examples of identifying the uses and users of Earth and environmental science in their many applications. It will also illustrate the types of methods for assessing the valuation of the socioeconomic benefits of Earth and environmental science, and identify challenges and best practices for doing this. It is anticipated that collating studies that illustrate the value of Earth and environmental science can augment public interest in understanding the use and application of this area of scientific research.

In this Research Topic, we welcome papers on the identification of users and uses of Earth and environmental science (including Earth observations) and especially valuation methods that are applied to understanding the benefits of these disciplines and related applications. We therefore encourage research papers from multidisciplinary teams. Finally, we seek submissions that identify challenges in conducting Earth and environmental science valuation, best practices for valuing research outcomes in these fields, as well as related frameworks and conceptual models for assessing the valuation process, and advancing Earth and environmental science valuation methods.

The Research Topic covers the following domains:

· Earth and environmental science applications (may engage quantitative, narrative, or qualitative analyses)
· Valuation of Earth and environmental science case studies
· Methodological approaches and conceptual models for valuing Earth and environmental science
· Best practices for valuing and enhancing the uptake of Earth and environmental science

We wish to acknowledge that Miriam Dudzai Murambadoro (South African Weather Service, Pretoria, South Africa) contributed to the writing of the description for this Research Topic.

Keywords: Earth observations, valuation, societal benefits and impacts, decision science, satellites

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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